Water Tower at Knockbracken Healthcare Park

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

This tower lies towards the north end of Knockbracken Healthcare Park, on high ground overlooking the rest of the estate. The covered reservoir is immediately east of it.

The tower is a tall single-bay structure, square in plan and standing two stages high. Its roof is of pyramidal profile, clad with painted corrugated asbestos sheeting (the original was probably of corrugated metal). Its top is surmounted by a clock, also with a pyramidal roof clad in asbestos-fibre slates and metal finial at top. Although there are clock faces to all four of its sheeted sides, the dials are missing. Replacement plastic down pipes, but gutters to sheeted projecting eaves soffits now missing.

Walls of quarried blackstone brought to courses. Embellished with stepped brick quoins and a moulded sandstone string course separating the two stages; dressed sandstone spouts project from the corners of the string course. There are also two courses of ashlar sandstone around the eaves.

All openings have flat brick heads and stepped brick jambs; the windows have dressed sandstone cills.

The original entrance to the tower is on its south elevation; its doorway is now sheeted with plywood. Above it, but below the string course, is an 8/8 timber-framed sliding sash window. There is a defunct electrical junction box mounted on the wall between the door and window.

The east and west elevations are identical, with ground and upper floor 8/8 windows; those to the ground floor have been sheeted over for security. There are also two dressed granite blocks set flush into the wall between the upper and lower windows (these carry internal floor beams). At the left side of the ground floor window on the east elevation is an external cast-iron water pipe (probably associated with the internal pump). The west elevation is partly overgrown with ivy.

The north elevation originally had a window level with the ground floor ones on the east and west elevations. However, its frame has been removed to make way for a roller shutter door. Its sandstone cill has also been replaced with a concrete doorstep which is now level with the road across the outside of this end of the tower (originally this road was much lower, but has been raised over the years). There is also an 8/8 windows below the string course and a modern electric light on the right-hand (NW) quoin.
Just east of the tower is a grass-covered water reservoir, measuring c.55m x 14m in plan (c.180ft x 45ft). Several cast-iron ventilation pipes of inverted U-profile project from its top. Now surrounded by a modern post and wire fence, it is still apparently full of water but no longer used.

The mid-1900s pump house SW of the water tower (at grid J3520 6757) is a single-storey, single-bay building with pitched natural slate roof and machined red brick walls. It retains its two electric pumps, both long defunct.

Roof: Corrugated asbestos sheeting
Rainwater goods: Missing gutters, plastic downpipes
Walls: Random rubble brought to courses
Windows: 8/8 timber sash

Historical information

Knockbracken Healthcare Park originated with the Belfast District Lunatic Asylum which was established in 1895 in the grounds of Purdysburn House, the residence of Narcissus Batt. Between then and 1910, various buildings were erected, including this water tower and adjacent covered reservoir in 1909. The tower and reservoir are both shown on OS maps from 1919 onwards.

The covered reservoir contained water which was manually pumped from inside the tower to a header tank on its top floor. This then supplied to various residential, administrative, recreational and religious buildings throughout the estate. How the water got into the covered reservoir is uncertain. It is close to the water pipe which runs from Dunnywater (in the Mournes) to a service reservoir just north of the Purdysburn Estate and which came on stream in the early 1900s. It is therefore possible that the reservoir was gravity fed from this supply.

According to Dr Michael Gould, the clock which surmounts the roof of the tower came from the Royal Hospital in Frederick St, Belfast. It opened in 1850 but was superseded by the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1903.

Sometime during the mid-1900s, the original manual pump inside the tower (which was worked by inmates of the hospital) was replaced by two electric water pumps.

A second pump house appears to have been built around this time, downhill and to the SW of the tower under review (at grid J3520 6757). It contained two electric centrifugal water pumps which apparently raised water up to the covered reservoir. Although a spring-fed stream runs alongside this building, the source of the pumps’ water is uncertain. Whether this was an auxiliary feed to the covered reservoir or a replacement of the original supply is also uncertain.

The water tower and reservoir are now abandoned and the former is now used as a store.

Sources – Primary
references:
1. PRONI D778/1208. Conveyance of Batt Estate, 1895.
2. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/7C. Valuation revision book, 1888-95.
3. PRONI OS/10/3/9/11/2. Second edition OS 25-inch map, Co Down sheet 09-11 (1919).

Sources – Secondary references:
1. Mr Raymond Hamilton, Estates Office, Knockbracken Healthcare Park.
2. Report by F.W. Hamond for EHS dated 2 March 1995.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
Z. Rarity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A two-stage masonry water tank and associated covered water tank of 1909 in the grounds of the former Belfast & District Lunatic Asylum. Although a utilitarian structure, this tower is of architectural interest because of its imposing scale, quality of execution, and sandstone and brick embellishments. The spatial relationships between the reservoir, pump and (now removed) header tank are of interest, as is the survival of the original manual pump. The roof structure is a particularly elaborate assemblage of steelwork. The tower is also an imposing feature of the landscape hereabouts and has group value with the other buildings within the historic Belfast Villa Colony Asylum complex (HB 25/15/009 A - J).

General comments

Previoulsy recorded as HB25/15/006